This flamboyant sword, mounted with silver parcel-gilt, is furnished with a blade not unlike that of a British regulation-pattern 1796 Light Cavalry sabre. Whereas many Arabian swords were made of crucible ‘watered’ steel (a product well-known throughout India and the Middle East, used for the finest weapons and armour), in this case the blade appears to have been made of a ‘mechanical-watered’ steel, akin to pattern-welding. The silver mounts are struck in several places with early nineteenth-century French import marks. The weapon is in such crisp condition that it is unlikely to have seen much practical use before becoming a collector’s piece.